426 Case of liijdropholia cured in India by Bleeding. 



certainly did lessen the spasms j and ihereforc, when bleed- 

 ing may herealter be used too late to succeed, I would re- 

 commend them as remetiles, rapable, thr>ugh not of pre- 

 venting death, yet of allowmg the fatal event to take place 

 with less suffering to the unhappy patient than any thing 

 else with which I am acquainted. 



On the recommendation of Dr. Bardsloy, of Manchester, 

 agentlchjan who has with unwearied zeal endeavoured to 

 investigate the nature of hydrophobia with a view to the 

 discovery of its cure, I also gave a very fair trial to volatile 

 alkali. Contrary to all expectation, I succeeded in getting 

 into the stomach no less than three drams of carbonate of 

 ammonia made into boluses with crumb of bread. But 

 the event was unhappily just the same as in all former 

 cases. 



Dr. Bardsley was led to this suggestion by the perusal of 

 Mr. Williams's cases of recovery from the bile oi' cobra 

 de copcllo by means oi' eau de-luce, and he endeavours to re- 

 commend its adoption by the followUig observation : " surely 

 in the treatment of so fatal a disease as canine madness, it 

 is proper to adopt any method of cure founded on RATfONAL 

 PRINCIPLES, y^/ialooy under these circumstances seems to 

 ve our surest guide. 



It is melancholy to relate, that though hydrophobia has 

 been unusually frequent in England of late years, and many 

 cases of it have been treated by the most eminent practi- 

 tioners in London, both in hospitals and private practice, 

 yet not a single case of recovery is recorded. Dr. Parr, 

 author of the Medical Dictionary, published for the express 

 purpose of exhibiting the state of medical science up to the 

 present time, after telling that every thing has been tried, 

 and that every thins; has failed in effecting a cure, consoles 

 his reader by acquainting him with the infallibilitv of 

 cutting out the part as a preventive, adding emphaiically, in 

 Italics : "/« short, full, effectual and compi ete excision 

 of the wounded part is the only certain meaiis of relief ; and 

 THIS IS certain." But still leaving us in the same hope- 

 less condition as to any means of cure after the disease has 

 actually taken place. 



Dr. John Hiinter concludes a most able paper on the 

 history of the disease, and the trials made for its cure, wiilh 

 these words: "after the symptoms of hydrophobia have 

 appeared, no medicine or remedy that has hitherto been 

 used has relieved, much less cured, the disease." And finally, 



A well mformcd anonymous writer, in the Medical An- 

 nual Register for 1808, after presenting a sketch of the 



practice 



